Outrageous claims about the bombings...

Stewart Bell has a rundown of some horrible claims about the London bombings.

Several Canadian Internet sites have begun posting articles claiming that Britain's MI5 security service, the "far right" and Israel were behind the July 7 attacks.

"Tony Blair Ordered the London Bombings," asserted a headline featured prominently on the home page of a Montreal Muslim website yesterday.

Another article on the same website claimed the men named as the bombers were innocents who had been "framed" as part of a police "cover up."

The bombings were "staged," it claimed, to justify the deportation and internment of Muslims in concentration camps as well as "an unstoppable wave of hate crimes."

"Far right-wing British terrorists may have been behind London bombings," says yet another headline, above an article claiming the attack was an attempt to stir a backlash against British Muslims.

Conspiracy theories began appearing almost immediately after the bombings, but they gained credence last Friday when Ahmad Janati, chair of Iran's Guardians Council, said in a nationally broadcast sermon that the British government might have carried out the killings to justify its military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. The British Foreign Office called the statement "irresponsible."

But conspiracy theories are still flourishing. A posting on the home page of the Arabic broadcaster Al Jazeera (under the heading Conspiracy Theories) claims the "London bombings were either an MI5, CIA, or Mossad operation."

An Internet site run by activists seeking to free Mohammed Harkat, Hassan Almrei and other foreign terrorists arrested in Canada claims the bombings were an "inside job: another staged 9/11 to intensify the war on Islam."

Some Canadian sites have tried to link Israel to the attack. One says the Israeli embassy in London "was warned before the attack." Another claims the bombings were done "with the knowledge of some pro-Israeli elements in Scotland Yard."